List of alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a list of notable alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge. Note that some of the alumni noted hereafter are connected to Trinity through honorary degrees. Not all studied at the College.

Politicians[]

Sir Francis Bacon lawyer, philosopher; Lord Chancellor
Enoch Powell, Conservative British politician
Lee Hsien-Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India
Vicky Ford, serving Conservative British politician

Prime Ministers[]

  • Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley (1867–1947), Prime Minister 1923–24, 1924–29, 1935–37 (Conservative)
  • Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848–1930), Prime Minister 1902–1905 (Conservative)
  • Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908), Prime Minister 1905–1908 (Liberal)
  • Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991), Prime Minister of India, 1984–1989
  • Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845), Prime Minister 1830–1834 (Whig); Great Reform Act (1832)
  • William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779–1848), Prime Minister 1834, 1835–1841 (Whig)
  • Lee Hsien Loong (born 1952), Prime Minister of Singapore, 2004–present
  • Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), first Prime Minister of India, 1949–1964
  • Anand Panyarachun (born 1932), Prime Minister of Thailand, 1991–1992 and again in 1992
  • Spencer Perceval (1762–1812), Prime Minister 1809–1812 (Tory); assassinated
  • William Waddington (1826–1894), French Prime Minister 1879; archaeologist

United Kingdom[]

International[]

  • Richard Blumenthal (born 1946), Senior U.S. Senator from Connecticut
  • Puran Singh Bundela (born 1950), Indian politician
  • Erskine Hamilton Childers (1905–1974), 4th President of Ireland, 1973–74
  • Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon (1866–1941), administrator; Viceroy of India
  • Rahul Gandhi (born 1970), Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) for Wayanad and Former President of the Indian National Congress [1]
  • Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey (1851–1917), Governor-General of Canada, 1904–1911
  • Charles Hawker (1894–1938), Australian politician
  • Thomas Nelson (1738–1789), signatory of the American Declaration of Independence
  • James Peter Obeyesekere (1915–2007), aviator and Sri Lankan minister
  • John Winthrop (1587/8–1649), founder and first governor of Massachusetts

Royalty[]

King Edward VII
Charles, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Elizabeth II
King George VI
  • The Prince of Wales (born 1948)
  • King Edward VII (1841–1910), reigned 1901–1910
  • King George VI (1895–1952), reigned 1936–1952
  • Prince Ranjitsinhji (1872–1933), cricketer; Indian prince

Clergy[]

Law and justice[]

Media and journalists[]

Alexander Armstrong actor, television presenter and comedian
  • Alexander Armstrong (born 1970), actor, television presenter and comedian, known for The Armstrong and Miller Show and hosting Pointless with Richard Osman
  • John Drummond (1934–2006), broadcaster, arts administrator, writer, director of BBC Proms and Radio 3
  • Ian Fells, energy adviser and broadcaster
  • Vanessa Feltz (born 1962), journalist and broadcaster
  • Stephen Frears (born 1941), film director
  • Mel Giedroyc (born 1968), comedian and television presenter; The Great British Bake Off
  • James Harding (born 1969), editor of The Times
  • Jonathan King (born 1944), pop impresario jailed for sexually abusing boys
  • India Knight (born 1965), author and journalist
  • John Lloyd (born 1951), comedy writer and television producer, known for the likes of the Blackadder series, Spitting Image, Not the Nine O'Clock News, The News Quiz and QI
  • Richard Osman (born 1970), television presenter and producer, co-host of Pointless
  • Eddie Redmayne (born 1982), Oscar-winning actor
  • Herbert Vivian (born 1865), writer, journalist and newspaper proprietor

Academics and scientists[]

Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most influential scientists of all time
James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist
  • John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902), historian
  • Joseph Arthur Arkwright (1864–1944), bacteriologist, FRS
  • Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859), historian, politician, and essayist
  • John Haden Badley (1865–1967), educationalist, founder (1893) and headmaster (1893–1935) of Bedales School
  • John Bell, Professor of Law, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge
  • Selig Brodetsky, President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • James Challis (1803–1882), astronomer; twice observed Neptune without noting it, before its discovery
  • Jared Diamond (born 1937), US physiologist and biogeographer, Pulitzer Prize winner
  • Simon Digby (1932–2010), Oriental scholar
  • Sir Arthur Eddington (1882–1944), astronomer
  • Sir James Frazer (1854–1941), anthropologist; writer, The Golden Bough
  • Sir Francis Galton (1822–1911), scientist; meteorology, heredity
  • Christopher Grigson (1926–2001), electrical engineer and naval architect
  • George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon (1866–1923), Egyptologist; funded the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb
  • Christopher Hinton, Baron Hinton of Bankside (1901–1983), nuclear engineer; constructed Calder Hall, the first large scale reactor
  • Tristram Hunt (born 1974), historian and former politician
  • Henry Jackson (1839–1921), classicist and reformer, Vice Master, 1914
  • Ian Jacobs (born 1957), gynaecologist and academic
  • David Gwilym James (1905–1968), Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton, 1952–1968
  • Sir Richard Jebb (1841–1905), Greek scholar
  • Lawrence Lessig (born 1961), leading US cyberlaw expert, founder of the Creative Commons movement, and free software advocate
  • Ling Wang (1917–1994), historian of science
  • George Campbell Macaulay (1852–1915), classical scholar
  • Thant Myint-U (1966-), historian
  • Sir Bernard Pares (1867–1956), historian in Russian history
  • Nicholas Patrick (born 1964), NASA astronaut
  • Richard Porson (1759–1808), classical scholar
  • Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (1881–1955), social anthropologist
  • Vilayanur Ramachandran (born 1947), psychologist, neuroscientist
  • John Ray (1627–1705), naturalist; created the principles of plant classification
  • Charles Rolls (1877–1910), co-founder of Rolls-Royce; aviator
  • Hugh James Rose (1795–1838), Principal of King's College London (1836–1833)
  • Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild (1910–1990), zoologist, suspected Soviet sympathizer
  • J. F. Roxburgh (1888–1954), classicist, first head master of Stowe School
  • W.A.H. Rushton (1901–1980), physiologist, one time president of the Society for Psychical Research
  • Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873), geologist
  • Cedric Smith (1917–2002), statistician and geneticist
  • John Maynard Smith (1920–2004), evolutionary biologist and geneticist
  • James Spedding (1808–1881), scholar; editor of Bacon's Works
  • William Fox Talbot (1800–1877), inventor of photography
  • John Arthur Todd (1908–1994), geometer
  • Sir George Otto Trevelyan (1838–1928), historian; MP; father of G. M. Trevelyan
  • William Thomas Tutte (1917–2002), Bletchley Park codebreaker and graph theorist
  • John Waterlow (1913–2010), physiologist specialising in childhood malnutrition
  • Tim Westoll (1919–1999), ornithologist
  • George Michael Wickens (1918–2006), linguist and humanities scholar
  • Francis Willughby (1635–1672), naturalist

Mathematicians[]

  • Sir Michael Atiyah (1929-2019), mathematician, Fields Medal and Abel Prize winner
  • Charles Babbage (1791–1871), mathematician, inventor of the automated programmable computer (transferred to Peterhouse college before graduating)
  • Martin Beale (1928–1985), applied mathematician and statistician, FRS
  • Hermann Bondi (1919–2005), mathematician and cosmologist
  • Richard Borcherds (born 1959), mathematician, Fields Medallist
  • Selig Brodetsky (1888–1954), mathematician, President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • Arthur Cayley (1821–1895), mathematician; non-Euclidean geometry, invented matrices
  • Sydney Chapman (1888–1970), mathematician, geophysicist; kinetic theory, geomagnetism
  • W. R. Dean (1896–1973), mathematician and fluid dynamicist
  • Timothy Gowers (born 1963), mathematician, Fields Medal winner
  • G. H. Hardy (1877–1947), mathematician; A Mathematician's Apology
  • Sir James Jeans (1877–1946), astronomer, mathematician; stellar evolution
  • John Edensor Littlewood (1885–1977), mathematician; Fourier Series, Zeta Function
  • Edward Arthur Milne (1896–1950), mathematician
  • Henry Wilbraham (25 July 1825 – 13 February 1883) periodic function.
  • Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871), mathematician; symbolic logic
  • Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727), mathematician, physicist; MP (Cambridge University)
  • John Pell (1610–1685), mathematician
  • Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920), mathematician; analytic number theory, elliptic integrals
  • John Frankland Rigby (1933–2014), a specialist in complex analysis[2]
  • James H. Wilkinson (1919–1986), mathematician

Philosophers[]

Bertrand Russell, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic
  • Simon Blackburn (born 1944), philosopher
  • C. D. Broad (1887–1971), philosopher
  • Ian Hacking (born 1936), Canadian philosopher
  • G. E. Moore (1873��1958), philosopher
  • Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903–1930), philosopher, mathematician, economist
  • Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), philosopher
  • Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900), philosopher, major proponent of women's colleges
  • A. N. Whitehead (1861–1947), philosopher, mathematician
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), philosopher

Physicists[]

  • Sir George Airy (1801–1895), astronomer, geophysicist
  • Niels Bohr (1885–1962), quantum physicist
  • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910–1995), astrophysicist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics
  • Freeman Dyson (1923–2020), physicist, proponent of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, Templeton Prize winner
  • Thomas Eckersley (1886–1959), theoretical physicist and expert on radio waves
  • Otto Frisch (1904–1979), nuclear physicist; first used the term 'nuclear fission'
  • Louis Harold Gray (1905–1965), invented the field of radiobiology; namesake of unit of absorbed dose Gray
  • J. B. Gunn (1928–2008), physicist; inventor of the Gunn diode
  • Thomas Gold (1920–2004), astrophysicist
  • Brian Josephson (born 1940), physicist; predicted the Josephson effect
  • James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), physicist; electromagnetism
  • William George Penney (1909–1991), nuclear physicist
  • John Polkinghorne (1930–2021), physicist, religious thinker, Templeton Prize winner
  • Rajendran Raja (1948-2014), high-energy particle physicist who played a key role in the discovery of the top quark [3]
  • Martin Ryle (1918–1984), radio astronomer; invented aperture synthesis
  • Dennis William Sciama (1926–1999), physicist; played a major role in developing British physics after the Second World War
  • Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor (1886–1975), physicist, mathematician; fluid dynamics, crystals
  • Sir George Paget Thomson (1892–1975), physicist; electron diffraction
  • Sir Peter Williams, physicist

Writers[]

Lord Tennyson, poet
Lord Byron, poet
Muhammad Iqbal, Islamic poet and philosopher
A. A. Milne, writer, author of Winnie the Pooh children's novels
  • Clive Bell (1881–1964), art and literary critic; husband of Vanessa
  • Charles Astor Bristed (1820–1874), American author and scholar
  • George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824), poet; "She Walks in Beauty", Don Juan
  • Edward Hallet Carr (1892–1982), writer and international relations theorist
  • Erskine Childers (1870–1922), writer, Irish Nationalist; The Riddle of the Sands
  • Abraham Cowley (1618–1667), poet, dramatist – The Mistress
  • George Crabbe (1754–1832), poet; did not matriculate
  • Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), writer, poet, occultist, and 'Magician'; Magick in Theory and Practice
  • Richard Cumberland (1732–1811), playwright; The Brothers, The West Indian
  • Warwick Deeping (1877–1950), novelist
  • Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1566–1601), soldier, courtier to Elizabeth I; executed for rebellion
  • John Dryden (1631–1700), Poet Laureate; "Absalom and Achitophel"; translator of Virgil
  • Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883), poet; Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
  • Giles Fletcher (1588–1623), poet; "Christ's Victory" and "Triumph"
  • George Gascoigne (1525–1577), poet, dramatist; "Jocasta", "The Glasse of Government"
  • Edmund Gosse (1845–1928), poet, critic; On Viol and Flute
  • Thom Gunn (1929–2004), Modernist poet
  • George Herbert (1593–1633), poet
  • Thomas Kibble Hervey (1799–1859), poet, critic
  • A. E. Housman (1859–1936), poet, classical scholar
  • Henry Hyndman (1842–1921), English writer and politician
  • Muhammad Iqbal (1875–1938), Islamic poet and philosopher
  • Stanley Mordaunt Leathes (1861–1938), poet, historian and senior civil servant
  • Nathaniel Lee (1649–1692), dramatist; The Rival Queens
  • John Lehmann (1907–1987), poet, man of letters; inaugurated The London Magazine
  • Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–1873), novelist; The Last Days of Pompeii; politician
  • Andrew Marvell (1621–1678), poet; "Horatian Ode", "The Rehearsal Transpros'd"; MP (Hull)
  • Frederick Maurice (1805–1872), theologian, writer, Christian Socialist
  • A. A. Milne (1882–1956), writer; Winnie-the-Pooh
  • Nicholas Monsarrat (1910–1979), novelist; The Cruel Sea, Three Corvettes
  • Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), Russian and English novelist; Lolita
  • Lenrie Peters (1932–2009), Gambian novelist, poet and educationist
  • Thomas Randolph (1605–1635), poet, dramatist
  • T. J. Cobden Sanderson (1840–1922), bookbinder; Arts and Crafts Movement pioneer
  • Sir Henry Spelman (1562–1641), antiquary; Reliquiae Spelmannianae
  • Lytton Strachey (1880–1932), biographer; Eminent Victorians; Bloomsbury Group
  • Sir John Suckling (1609–1642), poet, dramatist
  • Tom Taylor (1817–1880), Scottish dramatist; editor of Punch
  • Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (1809–1892), poet – "Maud", "In Memoriam"
  • William M. Thackeray (1811–1863), novelist; Vanity Fair, Henry Esmond (dropped out after second year)
  • Sir George Trevelyan, 4th Baronet (1906–1996), educator, new age thinker and writer
  • George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628–1687), wit, politician, dramatist; The Rehearsal; member of the 'Cabal'
  • Raymond Williams (1921–1988), Marxist critic, novelist; The Country and the City
  • Leonard Woolf (1880–1969), writer; husband of Virginia Woolf; Bloomsbury Group
  • Geoffrey Winthrop Young (1876–1958), mountaineer and author

Sports[]

  • George 'Gubby' Allen (1902–1989), cricketer – captained England; played in Bodyline series
  • Sir George Branson (1871–1951), Cambridge rowing blue and High Court judge[4]
  • Wing Commander Alan Cassidy MBE, born 1949. Trinity, 1967. National Aerobatic Champion, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2003.
  • Harry Chester Goodhart (1858–1895), twice FA Cup winner and England international footballer; Professor of Humanities at Edinburgh University[5]
  • Geoffrey Hopley, cricketer
    * Dar Lyon (1898–1964), first class cricketer; Chief Justice of the Seychelles
  • Philip Morton (1857–1925), cricketer and schoolmaster[6][7]
  • Sir Peter Scott (1909–1989), artist, ornithologist; Olympic sailor (1936)
  • Rev. Henry Holmes Stewart (1847–1937), FA Cup winner in 1873[8]
  • Charles Plumpton Wilson (1859–1938), England footballer and Rugby player
  • H. de Winton, created the first formal set of rules for Association football (The Cambridge Rules)
  • Maxwell Woosnam (1892–1965), Olympic and Wimbledon lawn tennis champion and England national football team captain
  • Andy Whittall, Zimbabwe cricketer

Spies[]

Kim Philby, Soviet spy
  • Anthony Blunt (1907–1983), Soviet spy; art historian
  • Guy Burgess (1910–1963), Soviet spy and traitor
  • John Cairncross (1913-1995), double agent; communist
  • Donald Maclean (1913-1983), double agent; communist
  • Michael Greenberg (1914–1992), Foreign Affairs Economist U.S. Foreign Economic Administration; Soviet spy
  • Kim Philby (1911–1988), double agent; communist
  • Nicholas Elliott (1916-1994), British spy
  • Michael Whitney Straight (1916–2004), US magazine publisher, presidential speechwriter, Soviet spy

Business[]

Francis Martineau Lupton, Businessman, landowner and politician

Military[]

  • Brigadier-General Charles Strathavon Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby (1870–1949), soldier
  • James Yorke Scarlett (1799–1871), British general and hero of the Crimean War
  • David Stirling (1915–1990), founder of the Special Air Service

Others[]

  • Christopher Alexander (born 1936), architect, author of The Timeless Way of Building and father of the design patterns movement
  • Hubert Chesshyre, retired British officer of arms found to have committed child sexual abuse[11]
  • Terry Eagleton (born 1943), literary critic
  • Nathaniel Eaton (1609–1674), first schoolmaster at Harvard
  • James Clerk Maxwell Garnett CBE (1880–1958), educationist, barrister, and peace campaigner
  • Sir Sarat Kumar Ghosh (1878–1962), Indian Civil Service officer
  • Antony Gormley (born 1950), sculptor, best known for Angel of the North 1968–71
  • Stephen Greenhalgh (born 1967), Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime in London[12]
  • Michael Gurstein (born 1944), Canadian community informatician
  • Peter Llewellyn Gwynn-Jones (born 1940), Garter Principal King of Arms, 1995–
  • Sir Stuart Milner-Barry (1906–1995), chess player, World War II codebreaker and civil servant
  • William Smith O'Brien (1803–1864), Irish Nationalist
  • Baron Kishichiro Okura (1882–1963), Japanese playboy and motor racing enthusiast
  • St. John Philby (1885–1960), explorer of Arabia; father of Kim
  • Alexander Ramsay of Mar (1919–2001), great grandson of Queen Victoria
  • Sir Benegal Narsing Rau (1887–1952), Indian Civil Service officer
  • Robert Vane Russell (1873-1915), Indian Civil Service officer and writer
  • Anthony and Peter Shaffer (born 1926; Anthony died 2001), dramatists
  • Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924), composer, organist
  • Thomas Francis Wade (1818–1895), diplomat; developed a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese that formed the basis for the Wade–Giles system
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), composer; Sea Symphony, Pilgrim's Progress

References[]

  1. ^ "Buxton, Arthur", in Crockford's Clerical Directory (1930), p. 190
  2. ^ John Frankland Rigby (obituary) at cardiff.ac.uk, accessed 2 May 2019
  3. ^ Kates, Joan Giangrasse (February 27, 2014). "Rajendran Raja 1948-2014: Former Fermilab physicist helped discover top quark, Higgs boson". Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Illinois: Tribune Company. Retrieved June 4, 2014
  4. ^ J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part II, vol. I (1940), p. 365
  5. ^ "Harry Chester Goodhart". Picture of the Month. Trinity College. 1 June 2003. Retrieved 4 February 2011.
  6. ^ 'Mr. P. H. Morton' (obituary) in The Times, issue 43964 dated 18 May 1925, p. 21
  7. ^ Philip Howard Morton at CricketArchive, accessed 9 September 2013
  8. ^ Warsop, Keith (2004). The Early FA Cup Finals and the Southern Amateurs. SoccerData. pp. 126–127. ISBN 1-899468-78-1.
  9. ^ Elliot, Chris (24 January 2018). "Revealed: How Meghan Markle's ancestry was shaped by Cambridge". Cambridge News. Retrieved 4 March 2018. Olive (Middleton's) father was landowner Francis Martineau Lupton...
  10. ^ Walker, T. (4 June 2014). "Kate's Family Tree". UK Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 10 July 2019. Kate’s great-great- grandfather was Francis Martineau Lupton, a politician himself, and his first cousin was the Birmingham lord mayor Sir Thomas Martineau, a friend of Queen Victoria. Sir Thomas’s nephew was Neville Chamberlain.
  11. ^ Jamie Doward (30 March 2019). "Honours system under scrutiny after sex abuser kept title for years". The Observer. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
  12. ^ Salman, Saba. "Stephen Greenhalgh: localism hero or demolition man?". The Guardian. 7 February 2012. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
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